Sophia: I don’t really want to speak to because I know my head is going to go round trying to find the way to express what I have to say, and I don’t know what to say . . . [begins to gently cry]

What I feel in this moment is like a leaf and it seems that I cannot say any more. I feel very fragile; it’s not a bad feeling but it is a new situation and strange and unknown to me. But I also feel very light.

Mike: I am very familiar with that feeling of fragility. I think it must be there if we are truly making changes because what is known is suddenly changed into some thing not so secure – not quite knowing what it is; all growth meets that moment somewhere.

There are two books that I have found quite useful in Buddhism. One is an essay and is written by somebody who is now a friend of mine. He is a Thai monk, and he is also an abbot and it’s really the story of Buddhism in very simple terms and it is called, ‘Falling Leaves.’ And the other book is written by a guy who could be described as a western philosopher I suppose and his subject is Zen Buddhism, and it’s called, ‘Catching a Feather on a Fan.’ You have to be really gently in tune to let the feather fall on the fan, because as soon as you move fast the feather is blown away.

So when we are going through these changes, we are like a fan observing our psyches which is like a feather; very light and airy and blowing in the wind. We have to make a relationship with the feather and be very mindful of the fan. I like this image very much because there is no attachment; it can blow away at any time. You can easily disturb the relationship if you try too hard, you have to be quite awake and then it is quite a nice image about this work at a deep level.

Mike: As people who were born into a culture which is basically Cartesian, we adopt concepts and we use those concepts in conversations or in our work as though they were facts. They are not facts; they are concepts, until we embody them. Does that make sense? Kieran has suddenly woken up, what has struck you Kieran?

Kieran: In the morning I went for a walk and we were talking about exactly this.

Mike: There you are you see …

The only way to find out if something really works is to stop treating it as a concept, but become it; then you have embodied it. From that position you can say that this works or it doesn’t work. From the position of conceptualisation you can make no judgement. We are talking about theory not practice.

So what is stillness? Without examining that word very carefully and being fully aware of the context in which it is being used, we accept without thinking a conventional interpretation of ‘what is stillness?’ The conventional meaning of stillness is nothing is moving. The horse is moving; the horse is standing still. The clouds are moving across the sky―there is no wind―the clouds are very still. That is the conventional meaning of stillness.

Another meaning is it relates to non-attachment. Everything is moving; the universe is in motion; the universe cannot help being in motion; the universe and everything in it is in motion. I am still in my awareness of that, and I am not attached and not drawn off by the universe and all its contents. My mind is active; I am meditating; things are coming and going in my mind, but I don’t go with them. I am still in my awareness of what is going on in my mind. I am not trying to be a zombie and have no movements in my mind. I am not trying to be a zombie and have no movements in my body. I am not yet suffering from rigor mortis; it will come soon I have no doubt!

I think this article might well be read in conjunction with The Teaching not the Teacher, which is in the Introduction section of this book.

People quite often ask me whether I think they are ready/ripe to teach this work, so these are some reflections stemming, largely, from my own experience.

First, lets get the matter of “levels” out of the way; it seems that every time I try to explain something, I have to say, “of course, it depends what level we are talking about.” I think it is probably necessary, however. If we are talking about the most efficient and pain-free way to re-set a dislocated little finger, then we have either learned and practiced the techniques, or we have not.

If, however, the work we are discussing, is of a Spiritual nature and, therefore, in my view, not subject to an objective paradigm, then the level and the approach are somewhat different.

In a sense, Spiritual work cannot be taught as though it were an object. What I believe, can be done is for the so-called teacher to undertake to create and hold a safe space in which the journey to the light can be undertaken. That is all the teacher can do as the journey is not just that of the “client/students” but involves the un-armoured surrender of separateness by both/all parties.

It is possible that this laying down of armour-plating, voluntarily, by the teacher, is the hardest task that any of us will undertake. It is a labour of Hercules, a voyage of Perseus.

Just when you think you have learned something, acquired a talent, perhaps, let it go.

Who finds it hard? The separate self, the role attached ego, everything that we have come to think of as being me; that’s where the problem is.

I remember well my first attempt at teaching. I gathered together (cajoled) a few clients that I considered to be well-disposed towards me. I invited a colleague to assist me in case I needed a sounding board. I read and read all the material that I could gather together. I surrounded myself with 20 or 30 books, all tagged with yellow post-its indicating learned references that I could use to expand my arguments.

The appointed time came and we all set down and meditated for 20 minutes. The bell rang to indicate the end of meditation and I opened my eyes, looked round the class and HAD A PANIC ATTACK. Full-blown and remorseless. Only two things stopped me from running out of the room….fear of what people would say/think (see how strong the ego is) and, the pile of books!!

Arguably, this was the most powerful learning that I have ever experienced; I had to sit and be with, the panic attack. I had no option. Something like forty years later, now that I am eighty, I may still not know what I am going to say next, until it appears, but I do not care. I just trust, nothing else, and all that eighty years of compost either produces a flower or a weed; it does not matter.

All this is me; your case is somewhat different; you have already done a considerable amount of work on your own journey to freedom.

The desire to teach sort of wells up like water in a spring and wants to flow out. Consciousness is expanding and teaching has become the latest form that the journey of the Spirit is taking.

You probably just need to wake up, you are actually teaching. Look around at your relationships, what place do you take in your community. How aware are you, compared to how you were, of what is going on. Do people ask you questions (and then insist in giving you the answer, of course)?

Yes, I suspect you are teaching but you would like to formalise that a little? Then just be clear about that. Take that on board. Digest that that is what you WANT. Great, it is a right livelihood. This action of clarity will have its own affect. You will have energised the “I want to teach” energy field around yourself and it will come. I do not know what form it will take and I now suggest, forty years later, in hind-sight, that not to construct and limit its form too much, will serve you well. What I am doing now; work that I see as an expression of being, rather than something that I do, has little resemblance to the work I thought I was going to do. But that too, is an unfolding.

You have nothing to lose, except fear and you will never get rid of that completely, so you might as well work with it.

Give up expecting results and be amazed at what happens. Jump off the cliff called trust and you may fly. If you don’t, try again next time and then really trust, don’t make trust just a concept.

People often ask me whether they should teach; whether they are “ready.” It is difficult, if they are really drawn to teach, they will do so anyway, whatever I may say. If however they want to associate, in some way, what they teach with my work then I have two views. One is that they should go deeper and teach from their own embodiment, not from mine and the other is that I have a sense of whether they are coming from that embodied place in themseves or are likely to be repeating some well-worn concepts.

Recently Matias wrote to me. I have worked with Matias, he is a very experienced psychotherapist and trainer. More importantly, I trust where he comes FROM. That is it! If that is right, I have no opinion about what is a suitable background for a teacher.

I reproduce the correspondence. I have very slightly edited Matias words, he is Chilean and you do not have to speak perfect English to be enlightened. Please note!

Dear Mike,

I am thinking of, starting teaching, some day in the future, even though my own teacher of “The Teaching not the Teacher” is right here. This day is slowly but firmly coming.

All my life experience, my Buddhist practices, my daily occupation with people, are converging in a natural way to some kind of teaching, similar to yours. Based on emptiness, silence.

I was wondering if you select in some way the participants on your courses. There are many nuances, that, if not taken care of, can cause troubles in the unfolding of workshops. Depending on the nature and needs of the participants.

Do you have something to share on this ?

Thanks. See you soon.

Matias

Dear Matias,

I hope you will do this soon.

Dzogchen is concerned only with what is. If turbulence is there, then that is what is. I have no guarantees at all about how people will behave. Some times a person is there who is having difficulties in being who they are and I have to just work with that.

Usually it turns out to be a blessing but it is sometimes hard to see that immediately.

I am naked. The way of the warrior is to take armour off, not put on more of it. Trust the Tide!

If I selected people in some way I would be dealing only with what I want; what is easy for me. This way I deal with what we all need.

We can talk more soon.

Love

Mike.

Dear Mike

I love it !

It is very real

And as I feel & see it now,

the only way for me to go.

Of course !!

Thanks.

I have admired your mastery of being naked when facing outbursts from various people.

I need to work on that in me.

Which means,

Shut up.

Open, go on opening!

Matias

I showed Jo this correspondence, as one of my consultants; she responded like this….

Dear Mike,

Thanks for sharing this and I look forward to meeting Matias.

I think you underestimate the skilful means you have in being with conflict and disturbance within individual and group dynamics. Over the years and on many courses with you I have witnessed the courage you have in not veering away from these uncomfortable places when they surface, quite often unexpectedly, and with a lot of charge. It can be a huge learning curve for everyone but only if it is held with spaciousness and openness.

This takes quite a lot of hard earned experience and the willingness to be naked and yet able to respond into the space. Dropping judgement is bloody hard work sometimes!

Lots of love

Jo x

I was grateful, as so often, that I have such people to work with.

Click the arrow image below for our audio version:-

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I realise that not all readers are therapists of any kind and I crave their indulgence, but the following came out of a course I held recently in Spain and I thought that the subject was so important that I would publish it for the many of us who are therapists.

“Whose process is this?” The value of supervision

Question: I have a question about something that happens to me. I have two clients who have been coming to see me regularly for some time. They have depression and there is a trust that has developed between us, so sometimes when they phone me and after they have been talking for me for a few minutes I feel as though I pick up from them where the last session finished. I feel myself beginning to yawn and to cry a few tears.

I allow the person to talk and I try not to give them answers but to refer the answers back to them, but sometimes they are on the telephone for over half an hour. Then later they sometimes leave me a message saying this has been very good for them to talk to me.

So my question is that even without trying there is a continuation of the session on the phone. Is this my imagination or my fantasy?

Mike: I think the question that we need to ask ourselves in those circumstances, is whose process are we dealing with here? That’s the important question. You may find that your own process is getting mixed up with the client’s process. If you are working with heavy duty depression, especially if the client is presenting as ‘borderline’ or psychotic or something similar, there is a danger of being sucked into that process to a point where it is resonating with your own process. Just think about that and don’t beat yourself up about it.

This work just filters in, so when when we are doing this work, I am quite fierce about insisting that we should have somebody whether we call them a supervisor or a mentor with whom we meet with periodically to share our own process. I do think that’s important. This work is so fine and so profound and it doesn’t meet the same reaction as something which is, for example, more mechanically based.

I am trying to insist on supervision in America, and then I have people saying, “Yes, but I know when I’ve got a problem, and then I will go and see somebody about it.” I want to say and I want to say it loud and clear, when you have a problem of this nature you are the last person to know about it! In my opinion, we need a mirror and I feel strongly about that. I go and see somebody about eight or nine times a year without fail. He doesn’t tell me anything about cranial work, that is not the point, he just mirrors back where I am coming from in myself; whether I am getting attached to things.

Questioner: Do you mean I should go and get some help for myself? I am already doing that every fifteen days.

Mike: That’s good. I am talking to the people in general. Any person doing any kind of deep level work should have some kind of mirror. If you are already doing that, that is fantastic. The mentor doesn’t have to understand the mechanics of cranial work or osteopathy or whatever.

Questioner: Every fifteen days I meet with a friend and I share craniosacral sessions. I am not going to a supervisor.

Mike: That is not the same thing.

Questioner: I realise that.

Mike: I am not saying you need medical help, I am saying you need a mirror of your psychic process. Let’s just stay with this issue and then we can go around and get individual responses.

Response: When I go to see my supervisor we work with the dynamics of transference and counter-transference.

Mike: Those are labels, but yes …

Response: The way I normally work with my supervisor is I take note of something that has touched me, and then we work it out together.

Mike: The thing we need to remind ourselves is that words like ‘transference’ are technical words that belong to a particular modality and that is fine. When something like this arises, there is no fault or blame, we just need to ask the question: “Whose process is this that I am experiencing?” Because whatever I am experiencing it is my experience; whether it is triggered or not by something in the client, it is touching something in me, and that is my experience. I have to own that experience as being mine, because if I feel it emotionally it is my experience.

I can try and get rid of it by projecting it onto the client and the client may or may not be having a similar experience, but in order to remain safe and to not get swamped, it is important we ask that question: “Whose process is this?” If I am feeling it emotionally then it is my process. The fact that it may resonate with somebody else’s process is neither here nor there.

Doe that make a little sense?

Questioner: This is very clear for me. When I am doing therapy and I feel something in me I ask myself, “Is this mine?” If it is not mine it is something that goes away.

Mike: So, for example, “when I speak to somebody on the phone and they ring me up a couple of days later after a session and I find myself crying, that is my process.” (See opening paragraph of this article).

Questioner: But I am not fully involved in the problem, I hear the problem and I don’t feel involved at all.

When I became aware of my own process of depression, I didn’t know whether to get in contact with a professional. I was afraid I would be given some kind of medication that I don’t want to take. I feel the pressure that I am going through at this point is because of connecting with something deep in my childhood.

Mike: Sure …

Questioner: And I have a positive feeling of knowing that I am healing this depression from my childhood; there is a certainty in my own mind. I have to live it out as my own process. I don’t have emotions around this depression but I do feel from time to time this need to be on my own and be by myself. Maybe you would advise me to go and see someone?

On Sundays, I go to meditate for four hours and there we do talk about things that come up as we meditate, but if you advise me to some other practitioner or supervisor I will do this.

Mike: [long pause] Yes.

Questioner: Who would you recommend?

Mike: Anybody who is reputed to be reasonably wise, and who is not a friend or related to you. Trust the reputation―you have to―what else can you do?

Questioner: This doesn’t clarify very much for me, but I wouldn’t mind going once a month to London to see you.

Mike: I cannot accept that, because it doesn’t work like that.

Questioner: But going to see somebody I don’t know doesn’t give me any confidence.

Mike: That is what every client who comes to see you has to do! You asked me a direct question and for once in a hundred blue moons I gave you a direct answer.

Questioner: Thank you.

Mike: You were going to say something?

Question: With regard to a supervisor, do you mean a professional like a doctor or a physician?

Mike: Is the concept of supervision unknown in Spain?

Response: It is known, but not well known.

Mike: I mean somebody who has a little experience and wisdom with no personal attachment to you who has the ability of being able to mirror what you are saying and what you are feeling; not to tell you what to do, that isn’t a supervisor’s role.

Do you have the word mentor in Spanish? Perhaps that is a better word. It doesn’t matter if they are a man or a woman as long as they have a little edge of wisdom that is useful. It cannot be a brother, or a sister, or an uncle, or a lover, or a father, because they are attached.

Response: As far as I know there are two craniosacral practitioners who offer supervision.

Mike: Do they offer the kind of supervision that we are talking about, or do they tell you how you should be practising?

Response: I have never gone to them.

Mike: It’s a task that once upon a time priests used to do; it was part of their job. This somehow seems to have got lost in the last hundred years. It used to be in there in the early days and it is still, in the cloistered orders. The desert fathers for example, didn’t talk about the rule of the church and how all contact with God had to be through the church. The relationship with God and with each other was much more direct, but things have changed.

Response: Sometimes you see people wandering down the streets talking to themselves, but I suppose this is not the best solution possible?

Mike: It might work for you but you might find yourself being locked up and sectioned! I often do it but I am old and that’s my excuse. [laughter]

Mike: What I’d like to do today, is I would just like to give a small talk on supervision and see if I can be a little clearer about what I am talking about.

I think that, in every country in the world, in the field of psychotherapy and orthodox counselling, supervision is mandatory. We need to look at two things: why is it important, and what is it? I think we have agreed that the work we do here is a joint practice which goes to a deep level of being. It is my opinion that I cannot think of any practice which safely goes to a deeper level of being. On the way to that level that I have described as being free of pathology, that level which is not a linear journey downwards or upwards but more a journey inwards to the core of our being which is already there. We may uncover, in that joint practice, some of the forces; some of the energetic patterns, which make up the totality of the human being which we have accumulated but which we have not digested.

Now stop me if I am not making sense, because I may be making sense to myself in my own language, but then I may not be making some sense to somebody else in another language.

Just to step sideways for a moment. All of us have at some time in our lives had nightmares. Has anybody never had a nightmare? Where do nightmares come from? They don’t come from outside on a train from Milan. They come from inside. They are accumulated and undigested experiences of one kind or another, which may be taking a slightly distorted form. Memory is not perfect. So when we work at a deep level with somebody else, we have discussed the word surrender, haven’t we? We are surrendering certain patterns of structure which we have come to think is who we are in order to discover more fully who we really are.

Some of those things that come up into awareness from the depths, which are usually portrayed in all the Greek mythologies as journeys into the underworld, are all actually journeys into the internal psyche of the human being, and the Greek mythology is a way of portraying that. So there are parts of the psyche that the ego is quite uncomfortable with and doesn’t want to look at, and the ego tries to keep them under control and out of sight. Sooner or later we all fail and something comes up and takes us by surprise and we find ourselves reacting or behaving in a way we wish we hadn’t. “Why did I say that?! Where did that come from?”

We all must have experienced that at some time. That is our undigested life experience speaking, and if we are ultimately infinite beings, there is an infinity of crap in there somewhere! There is also an infinity of joy and beauty in there, but they are comparative terms. You can’t have one without the other babe! You know one by reference to the other. Is that true? That is how we know whether something is good in reference to something that we call bad.

When we work at a very deep level and when we are open, vulnerable and surrendered, that is when the most profound work is done. The most profound work is not done when we are tightly held in a model; that will always be a limited work limited to the model. The most profound work is done in a state of vulnerability―insecurity―all growth is into insecurity. If we are not insecure we are staying in a place that we know, and if we are staying in a place that we know then we are not growing. By definition, any growth is the place or state that you haven’t been to before, that is what growth means; so insecurity and vulnerability are essential.

In the course of our work we may meet many people. You may have clients who are very powerful; I don’t mean they are bullies, I just mean they are full of power in that moment, and that power may not be completely benign to us. Again I am going to step sideways. If you have a very rebellious teenager in the family who is going through a bad time with themselves, who is the most powerful person in that family? They are. Everything revolves around them, doesn’t it? Most of us have had that experience if not directly indirectly with friends or family. The most powerful thing is the difficulty that that teenager is having with themselves. They are not doing it on purpose, they are being led by this undigested, unassimilated experience that is in their life.

So if you see that same teenager when they are with strangers, everybody comments on how kind and thoughtful they are! Do you know that one? But wait till the little blighter gets home! He is only able to be like that at home because he feels safe enough to express his own problems in the home. That is the burden of the parents. The child is able to express his dark side with his parents because he or she feels safe enough to be able to do that.

Let’s come back to the therapist. That pattern is in that person and they start working and it begins to go to a deeper and deeper level and those same forces if you like, that same undigested life experience which I prefer to call it, comes into connection with the exposed level that the therapist is offering, therefore, we are affected, not intellectually, but at a deeper level. We can get sucked into a process in the same way that everybody in the family is getting sucked into that teenager’s process I was just talking about. In the same way that the parents cannot stay detached from it, the therapist cannot always stay detached from it in that vulnerable state.

There is a resonance going on in her own system and she may start identifying with the client. She may in some small way become the client in complete unawareness, particularly if she may have experienced a similar kind of childhood herself, or ostensibly a similar kind of problem. It is usually around relationships, and so it is easier for that person to get quickly sucked into their own story which is buried through that resonance which is taking place. It is not a transfer from one person to another, it is like tuning an old fashioned crystal radio. There are 360 degrees in a circle and the whole circle is available, but when you just hit a certain wavelength their story starts resonating with your story and you start broadcasting on that wavelength.

Response: That is a very good analogy.

Mike: I think that is what is happening. All the other wavelengths are still there, but this is the one for the moment that the crystal is pointing at. There is no blame or praise in this. I would go as far as to say that in this model that we are immersing ourselves in this room, the more skilful practitioner you are the more vulnerable you are; the more likely you are to enter into these difficult fields without knowing it. Therefore, it is not an insult to say it would be a good idea for you to be in supervision; it’s an acknowledgement that you are doing deep level work.

What does the supervisor do? The supervisor is not involved in your process or the client’s process, the supervisor is a clean mirror with no clouds. A clean mirror. The purpose of the supervisor is to reflect back to you where your vulnerability has somehow led you, in the knowledge that if you brought into awareness what you are doing you would be able to stop doing it. But without the awareness you can’t do that.

So it needs to be someone of a certain maturity; somebody who has perhaps had some supervision training. It doesn’t matter whether or not they are craniosacral therapists, or if they are an expert in Chinese ceramics. The important thing is that they should be a little mature; not making judgements; not telling you how you should be because they don’t know that. As much as is possible they need to be a little bit objective about the situation in the context we are talking about.

The supervisor is not someone who says, “Why don’t you try doing …………………….?”“Oh, you are having a difficult time with your client, have you tried holding the sacrum and directing the Tide towards the left ear? Have you tried putting less sugar in your coffee?” She is more likely to say, “how does that feel right now?”“This situation that is arising with your client. The fact that this client seems to be giving you a little difficulty in one way or another. How does that feel?” Not what is happening, not what you are doing or not doing but how does it feel? What is the feeling surrounding that? That can gradually expand. “That feeling you’re having, have you had it before? Does it resonate with anything in your own life?”

I think I have said all I want to say on that. Perhaps one of the most important things I said was that your need for a ‘clean mirror’ is in direct proportion to the depth that you are able to work at. Does that make a little sense?

Response: It’s about something that you said yesterday. If, as you say, we are the last ones to know it may be difficult for us to describe the situation to the supervisor.

Mike: You are not describing the situation, you are saying how you feel; that is completely different, you are getting out of the left brain into the right brain. A description will only be conceptualising about something; the feeling will be the experience of something.

Response: This is I understand but it could happen that you would have difficulty relating one to the other, in which case your lack of clarity could be affecting the client.

Mike: It could be. It could be affecting the whole universe and the client’s state could be affecting you, that is what I am concerned about.

Response: So is it important to know what is the exact resonance that is occurring in me as the practitioner?

Mike: I want to be quite clear, and this is one thing I am very clear about. It isn’t important to know the exact resonance, but it is important to feel the resonance. With our Cartesian brains we want to know. We had this little discussion yesterday . We are driven to have information and that is not quite the same thing as knowledge. So is that helpful at all?

Response: Is it possible for meditation to cover this role?

Mike: Meditation is not doing anything. What is meditation doing? Who is the doer?

Response: I asked because what we are talking about makes a lot of sense and I find meditation to be very useful. In my case at the end of the meditation I feel clean and complete, but there is no guarantee.

Mike: If you are clean in that moment that will come up, if you are in a mess that will come up; meditation isn’t going to change that. You might however by devoting your time and space to that intention and giving yourself that structure become aware of what you are doing which gives you the opportunity in that moment to do something else. You make the changes; meditation doesn’t make the change, otherwise meditation would be an object we can acquire. Do you see what I’m saying? It is not an object.

It’s a bit frightening to have to take responsibility for ourselves, isn’t it? Instead of blaming somebody else for our problems, or hoping that somebody else will fix them for us. “I must change my guru.” The more enlightened the guru the less he is going to do anything about changing you! He is probably going to say, “What is your problem?” So you tell him all your problems, and he replies, “Oh, is that all? Have a cup of tea.”

Response: There are no guarantees.

Mike: There is only one guarantee in the whole universe and that is impermanence – that is guaranteed. I give you my personal guarantee.